Re: "interactive destop tool" (from ACM Tech News Oct. 11)

Building on the idea that scientists and researchers feel that they are
outgrowing the tools typically used in their fields is this article from
the IBM developerWorks <http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/>. I think
it may prove useful in providing insight into the desires and trends in
the scientific computing community. It also seems to add weight to the
idea that taking concepts and features from MATLAB and seeing how they
might apply to BASIN is a worthwhile endeavor.

 From the article:
"Science and engineering laboratories have long depended on proprietary
products for daily data analysis chores. Now, many labs are turning to
open source products and development languages for specific technical
benefits the conventional products don't give them."

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-oslab/

~doug

Bruce Char wrote:
> * Bottlenecks in Parallel Programming Hurt Productivity
> Electronic News (10/10/06) Davis, Jessica *
>
> Difficulty programming the code on which supercomputers run is the
> major impedance to productivity in engineering and scientific
> discovery, according to a survey of 500 users of parallel
> high-performance computers (HPCs) by the Simon Management Group. The
> survey found that writing parallel code, programming efficiency,
> translation, debugging, and the limits of software are the most common
> bottlenecks throughout all industries using supercomputers. Even
> though C and Fortran are often used for prototyping, those surveyed
> said decidedly that an interactive desktop tool would be preferable,
> if only it could be easily bridged to work with HPCs. The dilemma is a
> result of the fact that machines are unable to deal with the
> processing and memory requirements of the large data sets produced by
> scientific and engineering research. The survey found that the average
> median-sized data set used in a technical computing application today
> ranges from 10 GB to 45 GB, and is expected to rise to 200 GB to 600
> GB in only three years. "The study demonstrates that programming tools
> have not kept pace with the advances in the computing hardware and
> affordability of HPCs," says Simon Management Group President Peter
> Simon.
> Click Here to View Full Article
> <http://www.edn.com/article/CA6379644.html>
>
> * *
>
Received on Wed Oct 18 12:24:37 2006